THE profit growth of China's industrial companies quickened in November, according to official data, reinforcing a recovery in the economy as the government takes measures to bolster growth.
Industrial profits grew 22.8 percent to 638.5 billion yuan (US$102 billion) last month after rising 20.5 percent in October and just 7.8 percent in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The double-digit growth is in line with forecasts the economy is going to report its first pickup in expansion in eight quarters, as the government accelerated approvals on infrastructure projects and rolled out other growth policies.
Gross domestic product growth would probably accelerate to 7.8 percent this quarter, according to a Bloomberg poll of 34 economists.
The economy grew 7.4 percent in the third quarter, the slowest in three years.
"It's the spending in infrastructure that helped the recovery in economy," said Xu Haiyang, an analyst at Rising Securities, adding the November data could confirm that October was a turning point.
Factory profits rose 3 percent to 4.66 trillion yuan in the January-November period, the bureau said. Profits added 0.5 percent in January-October from a year earlier.
Xu said industrial profits could keep rebounding next year with improvements in the producer price index and recovering demand. Still, growth wouldn't exceed 10 percent in 2013, he said.
Earlier this month, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co, China's largest listed steel mill, announced a slight increase in January product prices as it bets on demand to improve amid a stable economy. It raised prices for December after leaving them unchanged for October and November
Among 41 sectors covered by the statistics bureau's survey, 30 reported higher profits in the January-November period from a year earlier, led by a 62.9 percent surge for power generation firms - thanks to lower coal prices.
Profits in the auto industry increased 7.4 percent in the first 11 months, slowing from 9 percent for the January-October period.
Ten sectors posted a drop in profits, including chemicals manufacture and nonferrous metals smelting.
The petroleum processing, coking and nuclear fuel processing sector was the only segment that lost money, however, with losses more than four times larger than a year earlier.
In the first 11 months, industrial companies' sales rose 10.8 percent from a year earlier to 82.3 trillion yuan. That compared with a 28.2 percent gain in the same period in 2011.
The statistics bureau's survey covers industrial companies with annual turnover of more than 20 million yuan.
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